EWF review – September 15th, 2001

By Raphael

Pretty good sized crowd. More than I honestly thought would be there, and more than other EWF shows that I’ve been to.

Like I said before, the show opened with all the wrestlers gathered in the ring holding American Flags for a 10 bell salute, the singing of the National Anthem and a Prayer said for the victims of Tuesday’s tragedy. I thought it was a very classy gesture.

Match 1:
Crimson (Anarchist) over Liguer Rivera via pinfall.
I guess Anarchist will be known as Crimson now, because of the events of Tuesday. I’m not sure if that’s temporary or not. Not bad for a couple of kids. Rivera looks like he’s about 12, but that’s ok, because Anarchist looks no older than 15. Not as smooth as it could’ve been, but at the same time, it wasn’t as sloppy as a match with two youngins could’ve been. Anarchist can definitly get himself over with a crowd, and he even got on the mic and didn’t make an ass out of himself like you figure a 15/16 year old would. The Pinfall occured after a “Roll the Dice” (Reno), “Last Rites” (Christopher Daniels) type move on Rivera.

Match 2:
Joey Ryan over Vizzion via submission (STF).
Vizzion, who honestly looked like he was wearing red underwear rather than tights was making his pro wrestling debut. Big laughs from the crowd when Ryan paused before starting the match, just to laugh at Vizzion’s tights. Vizzion looked a little lost at times, but that’s totally excusable considering it’s his first match, and he was probably very nervous. What is inexcusable is him falling down and dropping Ryan on his head from an apparent botched Body Slam attempt. Being nervous is one thing, being green is one thing, but if you can’t base for a Body Slam, then you shouldn’t have a match yet. Other than that though, Vizzion looked fine, so maybe it was an insolated incident. Ryan did get up and finish the match (does anybody know if he was injured or not?). Ryan kind’ve reminds me of Bret Hart. He keeps everything old school with Backbreakers and Russian Leg Sweeps, and just basically wrestles. At the same time though, he’s a cruiserweight and moves around fairly quickly. I saw him wrestle against Spanky and Preston Scott in a 3-way dance at a UPW lite show, and they had some good cruiser-type spots in that match. I would love to see Ryan wrestle at RevPro. Actually, I would’ve loved to see him at Revolution J, but maybe next year.
Post match “Handsome” Johnny Starr and Warchild D attacked Ryan and were handing him a severe beat down, when Stitches ran down to save his partner. After Stitches and Ryan regained control, they did this one tight double team to Starr, where Ryan holds the guy and Stitches flips over the ropes and hits a ball-shot on the guy.

Match 3:
Threat, “The American Nightmare” over Brandon Nitro via pinfall.
I guess this was a hardcore rules match or Aaron (the ref) relaxed enforcing the rules a bit. A lot of foreign objects and outside stuff. I’ll try to be less opinonated towards Threat here, eventhough personally, I don’t enjoy watching him. I never thought I’d recommend XPW’s Asylum to anybody, but I honestly think Threat should enroll. I know most wrestlers will tell you that there’s not a lot to doing hardcore style, but Threat makes it look hard. He wants to be hardcore, but it’s obvious that Hernandez doesn’t teach him that at his school. I mean, Threat’s basics are down, so you know he’s being taught, but I just don’t think Hernandez specializes in the hardcore style, so Threat goes out there and does terrible trying to be hardcore. His stuff looks weak. Somebody should teach him how to give a chair shot, if he’s gonna use a chair so much. Brandon Nitro did a good job here. He normally doesn’t wrestle hardcore (that I’ve seen), but he adapted to it, and looked a lot more believable than Threat did. And by the way, Brandon Nitro is the same guy as Johnny Nitro.
Post Match The Cash Money Brothaz and Threat beat down Nitro and gloated about it in the ring. CMB and Threat are in a stable called The Evil Empire.

Match 4:
Hardkore Kidd over Jason King via pinfall.
I might have to agree to this being the match of the night. I don’t know what “TrueEWFr” (note: he was unregistered, like a true EWF fan. lol) was thinking when he said King was green. He didn’t look green at all, so either Hardkore Kidd can carry somebody VERY well, or King knows how to work. Hardkore Kidd was wearing a mask in this match. wtf?! He still came out as Hardkore Kidd though. It didn’t seem to throw him off a bit. He was still on his game. I wonder how many people in the audience didn’t know that they were watching somebody wrestle who gets paychecks from the WWF or who’s name they probably read on the Ross Report. lol. Not much to say about this one except for good solid wrestling.

Match 5:
Cash Money Brothaz (Under Pressure & “Ice Man” John Black) over Krazy KC & California Lover via pinfall.
I don’t understand how EWF believes Krazy KC makes a believable champ when it looks like he can barely move. He didn’t even get in this match until it was more than half over. I don’t know…maybe that’s his gimmick or something. This match was pretty much all Cash Money Brothaz beating the living hell out of California Lover. Cash Money Brothaz looked very solid. Threat was out there cheating and giving some weak ass chair shots. It was funny, because at one point, John Black grabbed the chair and hit Krazy KC with and the crowd popped big time, and I don’t think it was because of the actual chair shot to Krazy KC, but because after seeing so many bad chair shots from Threat, they were just happy to see a good one. Very cool (and stiff looking) finish, with Under Pressure holding Caliornia Lover in the Hart-Attack position and John Black hitting a spin kick rather than a clothesline.
Post Match had a lot of crap talk back and forth and I think that it set up Threat vs. Krazy KC for the title at next weeks show…yipee!

Match 6:
Johnny Dynamite over The Nomad via pinfall to retain the EWF American Title.
Again…I don’t know what “TrueEWFr” was talking about but Nomad totally played heel in this match, and may have had the most heat of the night. And I mean heel heat, and not please go away heat like Threat gets. And furthermore Nomad never acts like a face. He may be booked against heels, but I’ve never seen him play to the audience, and he’s certainly not afraid to throw the first punch in a match…very heelish. But that’s his gimmick and it works for him. Even when he plays face, he acts heel. Anyways, on to the match. Johnny Dynamite did a freakin Spin-A-Rooni. I haven’t decided if that was a bad thing or a good thing yet. lol. Swerve job ending with Threat (sigh) coming out (yet again) and helping Nomad pin Dynamite after the ref went down. I was actually happy despite Threat being there, because I kinda like The Nomad. I guess as the story goes, Threat wants Nomad to join the Evil Empire but Nomad wants no part of Threat’s stable (that might be why I like him. lol). But…like a true heel, The Nomad accepted the help and while trying to leave with belt in hand, Jesse Hernandez came out and said the match had to continue because of Threat’s outside interference and about 2 minutes into the match re-start, Dynamite won after a frog splash. Pretty dramatic actually.

Match 7:
Aggravated Assault & Steve Masters over “The Miracle” Mikey Henderson, “The Future” Frankie Kazarian, & “No Doubt” Sebastion Bruce via pinfall.
Some very cool spots. Kazarian did this awesome Neck Breaker/DDT at the same time to both members of Aggravated Assault. It was a bit clustered at times, but I didn’t mind, because the action was good. Aggravated Assault have some sweet double team moves. I felt bad for Sebastion Bruce a couple of times after some of those double teams. lol. I would’ve loved to see any of the times that they wrestled Los Cubanitos, but alas…I missed those shows. After getting a little preview here, I would also love to see Aggravated Assault vs. Evolution sometime (maybe titles for titles…lol yeah right! like that would ever happen). Henderson had some cool moves in there as well. Actually…everybody looked very solid here. The finish came as one of the members of Aggravated Assault pinned Sebastion Bruce after a Power Bomb/Neck Breaker double team move.

Personal Highlight:
Joey Ryan’s enterence music. All the other wrestlers came out to Metal or Rap, like Linkin Park and Korn, etc. Ryan came out to Jimmy Eat World!! mark-the-hell-out!!

Personal Lowlight:
Anytime Threat was on the mic.

All together, not a bad show. The EWF show next Saturday is a free show in San Bernardino (I think). I don’t think I’ll go though. The only noteable names on the card are Aggravated Assault. No Kazarian, No Henderson, No Hardkore Kidd, No Ryan, No Cash Money Brothaz. Plus if I go, I’ll have to watch Krazy KC vs. Threat. I’ll probably just go to UPW lite next week, unless something drastically changes on the EWF card.

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